Organisation Design: Re-defining complex systems (2012)

The textbook I have written is aimed at people who want an in-depth understanding of how to deal with organizational design challenges facing large and complex firms.

It was shortlisted for the “Management book of the year”award in the UK. Key topics include:

Why organizations are becoming more complex

What managers can do to manage or reduce complexity

How to design multidimensional structures

How to improve sub-unit interfaces

Managing the organisation design process

To order:

You can view and download the list of contents here. Feel free to contact me if you have questions about the book.

Endorsements

“Nicolay Worren provides a much needed blend of organization design theory and practice as well as a rigorous approach to simplifying today’s complex global enterprises. It is an essential read for any organizational designer”

Marc Gerstein, past president of the Organization Design Forum and author of Organizational Architecture and Flirting with Disaster

“…The message that organization design is a part of every managers’ job, is a major determinant of effectiveness, but requires considerable skill, comes through load and clear from this book. With its use of challenges, key questions and proposed approaches the book explains complex concepts and provides a good blend academic insight and practical relevance”.

“In training the future leaders of the corporate world, business schools have historically placed little emphasis on organization design. Nicolay Worren’s book on organization design demonstrates this is a huge mistake. How we design our corporations has an enormous impact on their performance! Worren develops a novel, complexity-oriented approach by advocating a ‘design’ rather than ‘decision-making’ attitude. Worren’s book draws on organizational architecture as a key notion and also provides a clear, step-by-step process toward applying core ideas in organizational design and architecture. A must-read for today’s (aspiring) managers.”

“This clearly written book offers a contemporary and thoughtful presentation of the architectural options involved in organisational design. It candidly acknowledges the neglect of organisational design in much research (…). It emphasizes that the topic of organisational design must include processes of design (…) Overall, Nicolay Worren persuasively makes the argument that organizational design deserves to be a core topic in the modern business school.

Lex Donaldson, Professor of Management in Organisational Design, Australian School of Business, University of New South Wales

About

The purpose of this blog is to provide research based advice for managers who want to design a more effective organization.
I am an associate professor at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences.
See the "About" page for more details.